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What is SPEC? Human services strive to reach a balance between dealingwith crises and preventing problems in the first place. Similarly, theystruggle to improve community conditions for all and not just cure oneperson at a time. To promote well being for all, the SPEC way is aboutimplementing strength-based, preventive, empowering, andcommunity-change approaches
"To promote well being by concentrating on people’s strengths, preventing foreseeable problems, providing voice and choice, and changing community conditions that lead to suffering."
Strengths: People thrive when their strengthsare acknowledged and appreciated. Concentrating on deficits diminishespeople’s dignity and alienates them.
Prevention: There will never be enoughhelpers to assist all those who need help. We need to concentrate onthe root causes of health, psychological and social problems. An ounceof prevention is worth a pound of cure.
Empowerment: Control, voice and choice are essential for well-being.
Community change: We can never eliminatesocial or emotional problems one person at a time. We need to work onthe very community and societal conditions that lead to problems in thefirst place
Promoting well-being: Time for a paradigm shift in health and human services (.pdf)
(Prilleltensky, 2005): This article argues that a singularfocus on strength, prevention, empowerment, or community conditions isinsufficient. It presents a framework for the conceptual integration ofthese four approaches, while illustrating the benefits of their synergyand the risks of their fragmentation. It is high time for a paradigmshift in health and human services, and this article argues that only anew approach that focuses on strengths, prevention, empowerment, andcommunity conditions can make considerable progress towards theachievement of well-being for all.